


broad-shouldered beasts

by bygoneboy



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Nostalgia, Workaholic Original Percival Graves, and credence is a mess, and the author needs a stiff drink, except he's out of work, graves is referred to as 'percy' please forgive me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:24:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9395591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygoneboy/pseuds/bygoneboy
Summary: Shoreline’s one-shot sequel, set two months after the epilogue:In which Percival Graves receives a letter, and a proposal; in which Credence Barebone hears something he shouldn't, and comes to all the wrong conclusions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> “O how he loves you, darling boy. O how, like always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around you in an act of faith against the night.”
> 
> – Richard Siken
> 
>    
> ...  
>  
> 
> alternate title: an ode to gay men who don't have immediate and everyday anal with new partners
> 
> hello it feels like it's been forever!! i hope you’ve all been enjoying 2017 for as much as it’s worth, please continue to celebrate the new year by abstaining from having the same sort of angsty unprotected sex that is in this fic. 
> 
> if you've clicked this link but you haven't read [shoreline](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8679985/chapters/19898524) yet, you might want to go back and do that before starting in on this. it'll generally make a lot more sense, trust me. also-- quick shoutout to [pindefleurs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pindefleurs/pseuds/pindefleurs), whose comment on shoreline inspired me to re-read siken's "crush" over the holiday! this fic is your fault x
> 
>  
> 
> ...

 

PROLOGUE

***

 

 

Credence has ghosts, and they’re following him around.

 

He’s heard that sometimes you choose to carry them with you. That men hold fast to regret the same way they cling to the necks of their liquor-bottles. That might’ve been true for him in another life; he doesn’t think it’s true in this one.

 

He doesn’t mind the dreams of the city, facts of the life he’s left. Fog caught around the streetlamp glow, the endless stretch of dark street. The blue-gray chill hung round his neck, cold snaps and warm blood, belted across his palms. He only ever feels its absence: when he wakes, it lingers. He remembers, like it was yesterday, the bright flower shop two corners over, the hurry and hustle of taxi-whistles and shoe-shiners. Heels on pavement, motorcar hubs flashing in the sun.

 

It clings and stays the way ghosts do, bone deep, even after he has crawled into Percy’s arms, or curled up in front of the fireplace glow, lit low in early white-winter morning. New York is not home anymore. It’s made a home in him, instead.

 

And like all ghosts, it begins with a proper haunting.

 

(And owl talons, and pen-ink over paper.)

 

I. THE FIRST LETTER  
  
***

 

The tide-pools have frozen over and the wind has picked up a knife-edge bite, and Credence is less and less willing to leave the snug luxury of their bed before the sun has found its place in the sky. It’s impossible for Percy to sleep late, so more often than not he’ll go downstairs for a cup of coffee, and come back up an hour later to kiss Credence awake, bitter grounds against his tongue.

 

These are his favorite sort of mornings: dozing off at Percy’s side, watching flute patterns of ice creep over the windowpane. One of Percy’s hands is tangled in his hair. He’s sitting up with his back against the headboard, a leather-bound book propped against his chest— and he’s wearing his glasses, the ones Credence loves and loves on him especially, thick-lensed rounded things, golden-framed.

 

“What’s that,” Credence mumbles— meaning the book— thick with sleep, yawning and rubbing his cheek against Percy’s hip.

 

Percy strokes down to his neck, pushes his fingers back up through his hair. “Nothing, really. Some nonsense manuscript Tina sent me. It was written by a friend of hers, apparently, I promised I’d take a look at it.”

 

He starts to take off his glasses, folding them between his fingers, “Oh, don’t,” says Credence hurriedly, ears going pink when Percy raises a dark eyebrow. “Will you— leave them on, please?”

 

“I hate them,” Percy says mildly, “I look like a cad.”

 

He doesn’t, he looks— very smart, Credence thinks, sitting up a little to fix them back on the bridge of his nose. He looks like a proper city man. Like so many of the smooth-faced handsome suits that had swarmed the streets outside the church, the ones that he had secretly marveled over, flushed at. Wondering what it would be like, to be with someone like that, and see— he doesn't have to wonder, anymore.

 

“Tell me what it’s about,” says Credence, stroking his hand up Percy’s forearm, changing the subject before he can think to take the glasses off again.

 

“Oh— um. Magical creatures, beasts.”

 

“How to tame them?”

 

“How to understand them.”

 

“Am I in it?”

 

Percy blinks. Then laughs, a startled sound that warms Credence all the way up from his toes. “No,” he says, his smile caught around the corners of his mouth. “They’ve some nerve, haven’t they, leaving you out— would you like me to add you in?”

 

Credence nods, hiding his grin against his shoulder, and Percy flips to the front of the book.

 

“Let’s see…classification is out of five, and I’d say you’re between a three and four—”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Well—” He pushes his glasses up, squinting at the page. “Incredibly dangerous, but— capable of domestication.”

 

Credence snorts a little, muffled; Percy’s voice buzzes in his chest, deep and velvet. It’s warm, nestled against the heat of his bare chest, settled in between his arms. “Appearance,” Percy continues, “of course— very pale, tall, when you aren’t hunching. Hair: quite dark, beautifully, dreadfully uneven in the front—”

 

“Dreadfully?”

 

He wears it longer, now, and wilder, but not by much. Percy trims it himself, sometimes; more often with the weather so cold, when even brief trips into town feel as though the air will freeze their lashes shut. Credence likes it, the choppy cut. Likes the odd slope it makes over his forehead, the sureness of Percy’s grip on his chin, tilting his head with his brow furrowed, concentrating.

 

“I don’t mean to make fun,” Percy murmurs, reading his expression, reaching up to curve the tips of his fingers around the shell of Credence’s ears, where they’ve always stuck out a tad too far. “I love it, I love— beautifully, didn’t I say that, too?”

 

“Mm.” Credence flushes, and turns his face against Percy’s jaw like he can hide there. Feeling hot all over, exposed, Percy has a way of doing that. Of stripping him bare and sheltering him, all at once. Of planting words inside of his chest and bringing them to seed, and flower.

 

He runs a thumb over Credence’s cheek. “Your eyes,” he says, the edges of his voice rough, as though he’s somehow caught the tail-end of his thoughts. “I’d save them for last. They go white, when you— sometimes. Did you know?”

 

“When I what?”

 

“When—” His hand settles at Credence’s knee, breath warm and inviting. “When I make you come, Credence.”

 

“Oh,” says Credence, the exhale catching in his throat, going weak as Percy’s palm slides up, steadily, to the inside of his thigh. “Do they— really—”

 

_Tap-tap-tap._

 

A sharp rapport shatters the spark caught between them, followed by a muffled, indignant sort of hoot. They both startle, heads swiveling round to find Percy’s spotted owl at the window, pecking sharply at the pane and struggling against the wind.

 

Twig,” says Credence breathlessly, making to push back the covers. “She’ll have the mail.”

 

Percy groans, reluctant to let him go. “I can’t believe you named her Twig.”

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t name her at all.”

 

“Leave the damn mail,” he says, so low it’s almost a growl, cupping the half-hard shape of Credence’s cock in the palm of his hand and squeezing until he shudders. “She can wait a while longer, can’t she?”

 

“Can’t you?”

 

Percy bites at his ear.

 

But he lets Credence slide off his lap all the same, slumping sheepishly back against the pillows to watch him hurry to the window. The latch takes a minute and a bit of finagling to work open— only because he wants to do it with magic— and when it comes free at last Credence coaxes Twig in with an apologetic coo. She squawks reproachfully in reply, snaps at his finger when he tries to pet at her beak.

 

Her flight-ruffled feathers are soothed somewhat when he brings her over to Percy. “Ah, good,” he says with regained satisfaction, stroking over her sleek head with two fingers as he takes the letter. “That’s MACUSA’s seal.”

 

“It’s from your friend?”

 

“From Seraphina, yes, I think so.” He digs a round treat out from the side-drawer and feeds it to Twig, who takes it indignantly and flaps over to her perch without a single sullen hoot of thanks. “It’s been two weeks since I sent my last reply,” Percy mutters, turning over the envelope to tear it open, shaking out the handwritten pages. “That woman still thinks I’m at her beck and call, sometimes, I swear—”

 

With the letter in his hand, he falters.

 

Tapering off with the rest of his words frozen in his mouth, the line of his mouth going sharp and thin. Credence lingers at the bedside and watches the slow stiffening of his body, the way his shoulders tighten, fingers curling and tightening around the stationary.

 

“Percy?” he asks, softly.

 

Percy flips to the second page, a muscle flexing in his jaw. He doesn’t answer, or even look up, riveted to the page in his hand, and Credence feels an emptiness where the weight of his eyes should be. A nervous sort of tremor creeping up his spine, a hatefully familiar fear.

 

Because sometimes—

 

Sometimes he loves Percy so much that his heart feels swollen.

 

Like it’s beating itself to death against his rib cage, like it’s going to crawl right up into his mouth. Three nights ago he had dreamed of feeling the weight of it against the backs of his teeth, and of Percy, pressing his tongue past Credence’s lips to taste it there. Eating it out of Credence’s mouth, lapping it up like something sweet. He had woken up trembling, sticky in his underclothes, and when Percy had stirred awake beside him the sharp excitement had still burned in his stomach. He had rolled him over and draped himself across his body, felt his sleepy-soft smile when they kissed, rubbing hips slowly against each other until Credence had frayed at the edges, until the darkness had come out and touched both of them and Percy had moaned the way he does, sometimes, and said _Credence,_ in a hoarse, thick voice, spilling hot and wet between their bellies.

 

Credence had wanted to lie there forever. Boneless and filthy, his heart still pounding in his chest, he’d almost wanted to die there, just a little.

 

Just in case he would never be that happy again.

 

He feels that way much of the time. Always tiptoeing along the edge, sure that something horrible will come along, to spoil it— Percy says it’s a habit they’re breaking, and he likes that, when Percy says _we_ and means the both of them, the most natural thing in the world.

 

Nothing has ever come naturally to Credence before.

 

“Sorry,” Percy murmurs at last, folding the letter in half, putting it aside. “She’s— ridiculous, it’s nothing. Are you all right, Credence?”

 

He’s sick at the back of his throat. He’s so awfully happy sometimes that he can’t stop wondering how long it can go on for, how he might lose it, or ruin it, somehow, all by himself, “I’m okay,” he says. His voice sounds small, and sort of cut up.

 

Something troubled creases the lines between Percy’s brows. He reaches out and Credence goes willingly, fixing their fingers together. On the nightstand the letter is turned facedown, inked words hidden by the blank back of the page.

 

Hours later, they’ll hike down the cliffside and huddle on the cold salt-rocks with Percy’s afghan around their shoulders. Credence will drag almost-dry driftwood into a haphazard pile and Percy will light it into blaze with a single word. They’ll watch the waves roll in, and the tide fall out, and overhead seagulls will wheel, drop, plunge below the surface and come up with silver fish between their beaks.

 

But for now, in the warmth of their bedroom, Credence lays his head down on Percy’s chest. And falls asleep again, listening to the soft beat of blood beneath his ear, breath rushing in and out, and in, and out. And in.

 

II. PINE  
  
***

 

He’d never gotten around to getting a wand of his own.

 

Percy still brings it up, every now and then. Asking, _Wouldn’t you like one;_ saying, _We could go into the city, get away for a bit. We could stay in New York, make a trip of it._

 

Credence skirts around an answer, every time. He doesn’t see a reason why he’d need it, anyway, Percy’s wand still answers to him. Almost the same way his true wand would, Percy says. Loyalty, says Percy, he has its loyalty, that’s why.

 

 _Credence,_ says Percy, his fists twisted in the bedsheets, breathless as Credence kisses between his thighs, _you have me, too, do you understand?_

 

_You have me, you have me, I’m yours._

 

 _Do I,_ Credence wonders, turning his head to breathe hot at the crease of his knee, _are you, and for how long,_ because it can’t go on forever, can it? Could they? Percy’s voice pitches up, gripping at Credence’s hair and pleading and Credence closes his eyes. Takes him into his mouth and tastes at salt and skin, and the sweetness of Percy’s sweat.

 

The letter stays on the nightstand for three days.

 

Percy doesn’t touch it again.

 

It snows through the next week, flakes wet and heavy. Credence digs through a few of the spell-books Percy has ordered for him and spends an afternoon learning to cast a charm over their boots, so that they might be able to walk on top of the snow, rather than sinking down into it. To his surprise— and Percy’s delight— it works; they stay out for a long time, wandering deep into the pines at the far side of town, tracking their footprints side-by-side.

 

He likes the way the snow blankets everything, the way it muffles sound. Winter had never felt like this in the city, like another world, frozen and silent and still. In the city it had only ever meant numb ears, no gloves. Tears, turning to ice against his chin.

 

Beside him Percy squeezes his hand. Then brings it to his mouth, and kisses along his fingers. His breath is warm, eyes light. “This is good weather for skating, you know. Not too cold.”

 

“Oh,” says Credence, startled. “I never— I don’t know how.”

 

“It’s easy enough to learn. There’s sort of a rhythm to it, I suppose.”

 

Credence still treads on Percy’s feet, whenever he puts on the gramophone. If skating is anything like dancing, he thinks, it isn’t likely he’d be any good at it.

 

Percy smiles at him— the small, secret sort of smile that makes Credence wonder whether he’s accidentally blurted his thoughts aloud— and draws out his wand. With a slow arc of his hand, sheets of ice start to spread over the snowy forest floor, creeping up around the base of each tree, slicking the path under their feet. It stretches almost farther than Credence can see, almost translucent, shining like pearl in the reflection of the cloud-white sky.

 

He shifts his weight, testing his balance; his boots slide out over the cold film, the grip of traction yanked from beneath him. His breath stops as he wobbles, but then Percy is at his side again, grip firm at his elbow, and Credence steadies himself against his chest, grinning a little, himself.

 

“They set up a boathouse arena in Prospect Park a few years ago,” Percy tells him as they move slowly around their makeshift rink, his breath puffing in little white clouds. “On weekends the younger Aurors would go in groups, or meet up there, but I never went, I never…” He laughs, quietly. “Seraphina wouldn’t have been caught dead there. And Tina— I mean, she invited me out of sympathy, I think, once or twice. But I was her superior.”

 

“You never went?”

 

“I never had anyone to go with.”

 

“Would you have taken me there?” Credence asks.

 

He doesn’t hear the fragility of the question until he hears himself say it aloud— and then he’s flushing, high across his cheekbones. He knows the answer already. It isn’t likely that they ever would have known each other, if Percy had stayed in New York, if neither of them had suffered what they did. And even if they had met, Percy might not’ve tried the same way to save him. Credence had never asked for help, before Tina; after Grindelwald, he’d sworn he wouldn’t, not again. When he had bled out in Percy’s yard he had broken a fundamental rule of baring himself, spearing his fate on the kindness of strangers, and if Percy had found him in New York maybe he would never have known. Maybe Credence would never have let him know.

 

“I would’ve taken you,” Percy answers him, quietly. “I’d take you there now, if—”

 

He stops.

 

That last word goes on, echoing between the pines, _if, if,_ and Credence feels an unsteadiness that has nothing to do with the ice underfoot, another ghost. The last time he’d had this much hope in him, it had ended with Grindelwald’s hand cracking across his face, and a thousand beams of light, taking him apart.

 

It can’t possibly go on like this, he thinks, something deep inside of him aching, the words sticking in his throat, it can’t.

 

But Percy’s chest is firm against his back, and Percy’s arms are solid around his waist. Saying, _what if it could?_

 

_What if we can?_

 

At night Credence dreams of seeing the city scrapers stretching high above their sleepy small-town pines. Rearing up like a tidal wave over his head, engulfing everything. Casting a shadow bigger than his world, this world.

 

He startles awake before it crashes down.

 

New York is a thousand miles away, he tells himself, rolling over to find comfort in the familiar shape of Percy’s body, the sound of his easy breath. A thousand miles and held-fast, immovable.

 

He thinks, foolishly: you can’t summon a city.

 

III. THE SECOND LETTER  
  
***

 

It comes the next morning.

 

The MACUSA seal peeks out beneath an advertisement for hair-growth potions and a paper-wrapped package from Tina, and at first Percy doesn’t see it. He’s buried in the opinions section of _The Ghost,_ he's biting into his toast and leaving crumbs on his chin. He turns the page, gets up to top off his mug with the fresh brew warming on the stove, he doesn’t see it.

 

And then he does, and Credence watches recognition cast itself like storm clouds across his face, shutters dropping down behind his eyes. He rips open the top of the envelope, he pulls the letter out between his fingers. He says nothing.

 

So Credence says nothing.

 

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Percy murmurs to him after the sun has cycled through the sky, when they’ve skirted around worry all day and gone to bed, lying in the nighttime dark and faltering between words. And as always Credence hears what he means to say, _Are you—?_

 

_Is everything—?_

 

He finds Percy’s shoulder in the dark, maps his touch up across his chest, to the soft planes of his throat. Holds his jaw and kisses him, tasting his relief, trying to give him his heart. Leading his hand to the pulse of his neck, pressing his palm there and hoping he’ll feel it beating out a language beyond words: _Would you tell me, if I asked?_

 

_Why you looked that way, when you read what she wrote? Like someone had just been carved up in front of you, like you’d read a bad ending to a good story._

 

_Was it our ending, Percy?_

 

_Is it our story?_

 

IV. EAVES  
  
***

 

Three hours past pitch-black midnight, the lull of voices wakes him.

 

Still half-dreaming, he mistakes it at first for radio buzz: the narrated stories of cowboys and private detectives that Percy plays out of tinny cathedral speakers when neither of them can sleep. Blearily, he fumbles for the dials— but the radio is switched off, and the voices keep coming.

 

And Percy’s side of the bed is empty.

 

He sits up. Pale-yellow light is spilling in beneath the slat of the door, creeping up from the stairwell. He crawls out from under the covers still sort of sleep-blind and feels around the bedposts for Percy’s spare robe, then pulls it tight around his naked shoulders and inches his way toward the stairs, clutching tight to the railing.

 

The strange, unfamiliar speech gets a little clearer as he goes down: drifting out from the parlor, feminine and firm. “…won’t be an easy decision to make,” he hears as he comes around the corner, pressed close against the foyer, peeking into the room with his heartbeat caught high around his collar. “But I do need to know, and soon.”

 

“I said I’d think about it.” And that’s Percy’s voice, now, and Percy comes into view along with it, the frame of his shoulders rigid, wired. He’s pacing, his hands dug deep into his pockets. The low light of the fire flickers over the scars at his temple. “I’m not going to tell you again, Seraphina—”

 

“I don’t understand you,” she says, slightly impatient. Credence can’t quite see her face from where she’s standing, cross-armed in the shadow of the hearth, but he can make out the blonde twist of hair at her cheek, and the scarf wrapped snugly around her head. “Four months ago you would have been back in your office in a heartbeat. You must’ve written me a hundred letters, you begged me for work—”

 

“And you turned me down!”

 

“You were driving yourself sick over what happened.”

 

“So what, then. This your way of saying I’m cured?”

 

“Cured,” she repeats, dryly, “sure. Just apparently no longer interested in the institution you sacrificed over fifteen years of your life to—”

 

“I never said that!”

 

"That’s true enough. I’ve been here almost an hour and you haven’t said much of anything.”

 

Percy scoffs, but there’s a genuine undercurrent of affection in his voice. “Look,” he says, rubbing at his jaw, “it’s late, you should go. We can discuss this another time, I’ll think it over and—”

 

“Does this have anything to do with whoever you’ve got upstairs?”

 

Hidden in the shadows, Credence’s breath catches. In the light of the parlor, Percy stiffens.

 

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” the president continues, exasperated. “I was an Auror, too, remember, you’ve two pairs of boots in the hall, and two coats—”

 

“I keep them out in case my doppelgänger decides he wants another visit,” says Percy tightly.

 

“I doubt you’re the one reading _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three—”_

 

“Really? I’m glad you have such faith in my abilities.”

 

Seraphina’s tone turns blade-sharp. “Don’t patronize me, Percival.”

 

“My apologies,” says Percy, sounding not very apologetic at all. “But you didn’t come here to pry into my personal life, you came to remind me that once upon a time, I didn’t have one, so—”

 

“Weren’t you happy, in New York?”

 

“I’m happy here, too.”

 

“But it’s not the same,” she says. “Is it?”

 

There’s a softer edge to the question. Percy turns away, toward the mantel with his back to her. His silence speaks more than anything he could have said aloud.

 

Seraphina's hand twitches, like she wants to reach for him, and after a moment she does, palm resting lightly on his shoulder. “I know you,” she murmurs. “I've knownyou— since Ilvermorny, since our first investigations. We did important work in MACUSA, life-changing work. Don’t you want that again? Who’s life are you changing here, other than the life of whoever you’re using to warm your bed—”

 

“That’s enough,” Percy warns, shaking her off.

 

“We made a mistake. And we’ll make many more, despite how much I may hate to admit it, but that’s why we need you.”

 

“I’ll give you an answer when I’ve decided on—”

 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” says Seraphina, her full exasperation breaking through at long last, “what on earth is the matter with you? You can’t honestly tell me you’ve committed to chaining yourself here— of all the miserable places in the world, Graves—”

 

“That’s _enough!”_

 

He turns on her; Credence shrinks back, tastes fear. He has never seen Percy angry, never heard him this way, accusing, furious, _“You_ sent me here,” he snarls, “this was your idea! Did you think I’d come slinking back like a dog to heel after you dropped me to the curb for your own carelessness? Did you expect me to spend all these months wallowing and waiting for you to change your mind, Seraphina, I’ve moved on, I—”

 

The anger dissipates, slowly. Like fog over water, and Percy suddenly looks years older, weighed down with something like regret, near heartache.

 

“God knows I miss it,” he whispers.

 

The president is silent. His words settle heavy, hanging between them, broken only by the hiss of the hearth embers, and the dulled tick of the mantelpiece clock.

 

“You aren’t the kind of man who retires,” she says, finally. “We both know that.”

 

There’s a muffled crack. A blur, as she apparates.

 

And then she’s gone, leaving Percy standing alone in the dark parlor warmth, and Credence, trembling in the hall.

 

Somehow, he holds himself together long enough to make it back upstairs.

 

He pulls the covers tight over his head. Hugging his knees to his chest, fighting to keep himself solid. Still wrapped in Percy’s robe, he turns his face in to the collar and breathes in deep, and slow, and gradually the wildness behind his ribs calms at the scent. But without the burn under his skin something else rises up in its place: low in his throat, almost blinding, blurring his eyes and breaking ragged sounds from his mouth.

 

He doesn’t know how long he lies there alone. Or how long he spends struggling to stifle and choke down his cries into the crook of his arm. But by the time Percy comes upstairs at last, Credence is breathing shallow again, quiet and still in the pillow-dark.

 

The mattress dips as he settles beside him. “Credence,” he hears him say, softly, fingers stroking through his hair, his voice unsteady, “Are you awake?”

 

Credence doesn’t answer, eyes shut tight. And it seems to fool Percy, because he slips down beside him, and cradles him carefully to his chest without another word.

 

And he’s warm, curled around him.

 

But Credence still feels cold inside, frozen over.

 

And he doesn’t sleep tonight, either, much less dream.

 

V. FLUX  
  
***

 

He rises before the sun does. Percy stirs and mumbles, when he eases out from the circle of his arms, but he doesn’t wake. Credence steals downstairs alone, worn down and aching; it plays out over and over again behind his tired eyes, cut and looped:

 

Seraphina’s straight-backed seriousness. Her persistence and _you aren’t the kind of man who retires._ And Percy saying, _God knows—_ pleading, _I miss it—_ meaning:

 

Choosing between loving Credence, and leaving him.

 

Percy is a good man. The best, the only Credence has ever really known, and he knows that he would stay here with him, through anything, if Credence—

 

If Credence asked him to.

 

The world around him shifts. Dug-in heels on the cliff-edge cusp of crumbling, realizing: Percy would stay, would stay for him. He could keep him, keep everything, the taste of him in the morning, stale breath, and bitter coffee, and the hitch of his breath, when Credence puts his hand around him. The ripples in his back, shifting muscle under his skin, his round little glasses, the sound of his sighs.

 

The walls of the house seem to shrink and close in around him. His head spins, as he fumbles for his boots and flees out to the porch— bracing himself against the wooden frame, the darkness inside of him rearing awake again, beating black bone fists against the prison of his body. Throwing in all its weight, begging to be let free. Wanting to tear through the clouds and taste fresh pine, sea-salt air, to writhe and wail high among the tide and breakers, far from whispers he’s afraid to understand, the cold shock of words he was never meant to hear.

 

The beast crawls out of his chest and he lets it.

 

Crumbling into ash as he gives himself over, throwing himself high and losing his sane mind to the feral half, needing it to move for him, craving instinct over thought. The low fog is thick and dense, dampness clinging to his edges; it had used to feel like skinning himself alive. Now it feels like shedding one body for another, trading in flesh and bone for black wings, white eyes.

 

He had used to be afraid, frightened of the thing inside of him.

 

Now he is afraid of something else entirely— and it is not New York, but the full-hearted way Percy looks at him, knowing how it will fade to indifference.

 

If Credence asks, Percy will grow old here, but he’ll grow bitter, too. He’ll stay, and stay loyal, but every day he’ll remember city skylines, and hate Credence for it a little more.

 

He hits the ground again hard, skidding over the shore below the cliff. Black coils curl at his feet, rolling over slick shale and the slow turn of breakers at high tide. Soaking over his boots. Drenching through Percy’s robe, when he drops to his knees, sharp edged rocks scraping at his shins.

 

 _Selfish boy,_ hisses a voice in the back of his head, the one he thought had died with Mary Lou. _Wicked boy,_ and yes, he knows, he knows. Stupid enough to believe it would last. Foolish enough to hope it could. He hadn’t been thinking of Percy, he hadn’t been thinking at all.

 

His lungs go lead-heavy, eyes salt-wet, burning. He cries ugly, heaving sobs, sitting with his own arms wrapped around himself. He cries until his throat is raw, until his ribs hurt from it, until the darkness crawls back inside of him and whimpers, dragged down under the riptide of clung-to grief, drowning.

 

Credence cradles his head in his hands and wishes he could drown, too.

 

VI. FLOOD  
  
***

 

It feels like an age before the tears stop coming.

 

He dries the tracks from cheek to chin with the backs of his sleeves, and clambers up on unsteady legs. The walk back is not long but it is made longer by the knife-whip of wind, turning sharp around the cliffside. By the time he’s reached the porch again the sun has crept up over the low ocean-line, and he’s shivering in violent bursts, the seawater frozen over in stiff, raw patches.

 

Percy is in the parlor, again. Settled in his red wingback with the leather-bound manuscript in his hand— but he isn’t reading, he’s staring off into the morning hearth fire, and when Credence comes in he looks up with his whole body tensing, expression going slack with relief.

 

“There you are,” he exhales, the book dropping to his lap. “You weren’t in the house when I woke and I was, I thought— my God, you look half-frozen!”

 

“I need to talk to you,” says Credence, or tries to say, too faint to be heard.

 

Percy is already out of his chair, taking up Credence’s hands in his own. _“Callesco,”_ he mutters, casting much-warmth through Credence’s trembling body, _“incendio,”_ he adds over his shoulder, and the flames in the hearth rise higher. “Merlin’s beard, is that my robe—? You’re like ice, Credence, where did you go?”

 

“The beach.” His heart is beating a wretched rhythm against his breastbone. “I need to talk to you,” he says again, louder but no braver for it, “Percy—”

 

“In a minute,” says Percy, cupping his face between his palms. “Let’s get you out of this wet thing, first, you’re shaking, what on earth were you—”

 

Credence kisses him quiet.

 

And kisses him again when he feels another question shaping around Percy’s lips, kisses him deep and insistent until he feels the warmth of Percy’s tongue, softening the seam of his mouth. Until Percy is out of breath and panting against him, letting Credence undo the buttons lining his front. Letting him walk him back into the wingback, pressing him down, standing between his knees to tug at his waistcoat.

 

He drops it to the floor when it comes off, and straddles Percy’s lap.

 

“Credence,” says Percy, bewildered, quirking a dark eyebrow as Credence’s fingers free his shirt-collar. “What’s this?”

 

“I’m just— doing what you said.”

 

“I said we’d get _you_ out of your clothes, not me out of _mine—”_

 

Credence yanks his shirt open and presses icy palms over his chest, feeling him suck in a quick breath at the touch. “Let me,” he says. And he must hide the desperation well enough to put Percy at ease, because he sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth like he’s biting back a grin, eyes crinkled at the corners, warm in the firelight, honey-brown.

 

“If you catch cold,” he starts, still, and Credence reaches down between his legs, and watches his head arc back.

 

He’s biting at his lip again, harder, like he’s trying hard to hold back all the sounds that spill out of him anyway, and when he kisses Credence, Credence sets his teeth against the place Percy’s were. Biting at the same spot, hearing his breath stutter.

 

“Let me,” Credence says again, mouth tingling and puffy when he pulls away. “I— I want to.”

 

“Shouldn’t we— upstairs—”

 

“Here,” says Credence. Guiding Percy’s hands to his waist, holding them there. “Here,” he repeats, against his mouth, “please.”

 

They keep a vial of oil in the drawer next to the bed. So far they’ve only used it when Percy touches him, and uses his hand. Or when Credence rolls on top of him the way he likes to do, and pushes their hips together— they use it then, too. But never for this, they haven’t— done this yet. And now Credence— wants it, wants to have it. Wants Percy, wants all of him, too much of him, wants to stop thinking.

 

He shuffles back, undoes the robe. Shrugs it off, realizes—

 

He’s not wearing anything underneath it.

 

Percy’s eyes are wide, his mouth sort of slack. “Credence—”

 

“I, uh,” says Credence, face going hot, breathless, taking Percy’s hand in his and guiding it back, down. Below the cradle of his hips, between the swell of his ass, where the muscle furls.

 

“Oh, hell,” says Percy, in a strangled sort of voice, thumb circling over the sensitive dip, gazing up at him with dark, hungry eyes. “Are you— you’re sure? You want me to—”

 

The tip of his thumb presses down and Credence sucks in a breath, hips canting forward. “Please,” he says, voice pitching. “Percy—”

 

“All right,” Percy hushes him, kissing at his neck. “Shh, it’s all right.”

 

He murmurs a spell that Credence doesn’t recognize; when he looks down it’s to find him warming a warm, thick sort of oil between his palms. As Credence watches he spreads it over his fingertips, down each knuckle.

 

“You’ll need to tell me— if it hurts, if you want me to stop—”

 

Credence nods, breath coming quick. Percy is circling slowly around the dip of his hole, gentle.

 

“If you change your mind, Credence—”

 

“Come on,” Credence whispers, squeezing his eyes shut, rocking back against him, “please, please.”

 

The first finger goes in slow, easier than he’d expected. The second goes even slower, and stings, but not badly. Credence feels unbalanced, overly aware of everything, the pulse in his throat, every inch of their skin that meets, the foreign feeling of Percy— _there._ But it’s better than he’d imagined it’d be. Far better than the few rare times he’d attempted to do it himself, clumsy and unpracticed, Percy is nothing like that. So careful with him, pushing slow, pulling steady.

 

The third—

 

For a moment, clutching at Percy’s shoulders, breathing in sharply through his nose, Credence doesn’t know if he can stand it.

 

But then Percy is twisting his wrist, crooking his fingers— and his mind goes fuzzy, his body quaking in a little spasm as heat climbs up from the base of his spine.

 

And after that he doesn’t know how long it goes on for, Percy rubbing slowly in and out of him. Sparking little flame-bursts at the base of his hips, making him keen, and cry out. He can’t stop himself from pushing back against him, draping himself over Percy’s chest until he feels Percy’s free hand stroking at his hair— damp, still, but drying slowly in the firelight. Soft under Percy’s fingertips, his cock full and heavy between them. It takes everything he has, not to rut up against Percy’s belly, and satisfy the rising crest of pleasure there.

 

When it’s too much, when his hips are bucking down to meet every thrust of Percy’s hand— Percy kisses him. And fumbles between his legs and takes his cock out, slicking it up one-handed, guiding Credence up, fingers digging into his thigh—

 

When he pushes in, Credence thinks he might come apart.

 

Or fall to pieces in his arms, shuddering senselessly, feeling— _inside him. Inside of him,_ “Percy—”

 

“Shh, shh,” says Percy, gasping a little, petting at his hair, “oh— God. Credence, oh, hell.”

 

“Percy,” says Credence, again, dizzy. Feeling him— all of him, buried. Throbbing, heavy— so much bigger than his fingers, or Percy’s fingers, and it’s close to unbearable, the stretch. But maybe it’s better that way; maybe he’ll remember it better. He doesn’t want it to stop, either way, the slick of oil sliding down the back of his thigh with Percy’s hands back on Credence’s waist, lifting him, just a little, and then. Lowering him, pushing back up into him, a suggestion: _here, shh, like this._

 

“Oh,” Credence says. His voice doesn’t sound like his own— too high, ragged, raw. He digs his knees into the armchair cushion and shifts his hips, and Percy hisses, words trapped behind clenched teeth, then moans, brokenly, when Credence seats himself again, the swell of his ass against Percy’s thighs. “Like that— Percy?”

 

“Just keep— yes, move, keep moving, just, oh, God.”

 

“What does it— is it— good?”

 

 _“Good—”_ He swallows heavily, fingers flexing against Credence’s waist. “God, it’s been— so long.”

 

“Am I good,” Credence begs, desperate. When he pushes down against the cradle of Percy’s hips again his cock slaps against his belly, wet and red, “Percy—”

 

“Yes,” says Percy, _“fuck—”_ groaning in the back of his throat. “You’re so— and tight, and so, you’re so— hot, inside.”

 

 _Inside—_ Credence moans. Kisses him, clumsy. Fumbling to find his lips past the foggy sort of bliss filming between them, so thick he can hardly breathe for it. Bouncing on his lap, little embers of pain-pleasure rippling up his spine.

 

“You feel like heaven,” Percy gasps against his lips, and shifts back a little, so that Credence has more room to press his weight down, and suddenly—

 

“Oh,” says Credence, breath stolen straight from his lungs, “oh.”

 

His vision has gone spotty. Like film-reels, the silent silver pictures he’d always dreamed of seeing. He can hear the hearth-embers crackling into fire. And his own voice, in wordless sound. He can feel Percy’s hands in his hair. Stroking at his temple and _shh, shh_ , saying _Credence, honey, shh._

 

“Percy,” says Credence, the name cracks in his mouth. “Percy.”

 

“I know,” says Percy. “Shh, I know. Can you— move? Honey?”

 

When he slides down to the cradle of Percy’s hips this time, he can’t stop it, the flood of everything— eyes wet, voice breaking for good. Chasing the white-hot ache, his cock throbbing. “Please,” he hears himself chanting, “please, please.” Percy’s fingers are dug tight against his back, now, fingernails cutting moon-crescents into his skin. “Oh, please,” Credence says, sobs. Holding Percy’s face between his hands as Percy tenses beneath him, thighs shaking, “Percy, don’t—”

 

“What,” says Percy, hoarse. Pressing their foreheads together, tasting his breath.

 

He doesn’t know how to tell him. Filled with him, wanting him deeper. Wanting to break. Wanting Percy to break him, break him apart and put him back together again, the way he did before, on the beach. When he’d kissed him, and cut out his heart.

 

His tears are hot on his cheeks. Riding him in stuttered, ragged little pushes, “Please,” he begs, coming apart at the seams. “I’m so— I’m so happy, you make me so— I never thought I’d be, not ever—”

 

“Credence,” Percy whispers, stroking at him, “What is it, what?”

 

“Please, please, I’ll— I could find somewhere else to go. Or I could— stay here, I could write to you, we could still— see each other, I could visit sometimes—”

 

“Visit where? Credence?”

 

“New York,” says Credence. His arms are tight around Percy’s neck.

 

“Oh— God,” says Percy, something incredibly aware dawning in his voice. “Credence—”

 

“You have to, you want to go—”

 

"I know, I do—”

 

“Please, please don’t leave me—”

 

“I’m not going to,” says Percy, “you’ll come with me, Credence, you’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

 

He means to answer, mouth falling open, but instead he cries out, a little feeble thing, soft, clenching around Percy as his beast ripples away from his body, as his vision blurs. Ribboned curls of it wind tight around Percy’s arms, waist, throat; stripes of white coat both their bellies as his cock swells and spills. And Percy follows the way he always does, shuddering when the darkness touches every part of him, wrapping them up, kissing Credence deep and open-mouthed with his hands twined in the black-ink strands of his hair, emptying into him, chest heaving, moaning helplessly.

 

“You’ll come with me,” Percy says again, when the shadowy curtain has faded from around them. He’s rocking Credence back and forth, his softening cock still buried inside of him. “We’ll get an apartment,” he whispers, breath warm against Credence’s hair. “It’ll be big enough for the both of us, we could find you a job, if you want. Tina’s sister has a little set-up in Woolworth you could help with, and I could come down and see you on break— maybe you could even work with me, someday.”

 

“They would never let me,” says Credence, face shamefully wet, hiccuping a little. “Your president—”

 

“She won’t touch you.”

 

“She won’t let you have me.”

 

“Credence,” says Percy, very seriously, “she owes me, for the rest of my career.”

 

He wants to believe him. He’s never wanted anything so badly, not since he’d wanted Percy himself, the real thing, flesh and blood and scars. “You want me— to live with you?” he asks, throat stopping up.

 

“Isn’t that what we’ve already been doing?”

 

“You want me in New York?”

 

“I want you wherever I am,” says Percy, rubbing at his back in slow circles. “Don’t you know that? I want you with me, Credence, that’s all, that’s all I want.”

 

He leans back, and takes Credence’s chin in his hand.

 

“Tell me,” he says. “What do you want?”

 

VII. DAWN  
  
***

 

He’s never traveled by portkey before, and the morning they go Credence is breathless with nervous excitement. Percy spends a half hour in the yard preparing it. By the time he’s finished casting the spell, Credence has got his suitcase packed and settled with the rest of their things, and he’s dragging Twig’s cage out onto the porch.

 

“That’s it, then,” Percy says, tucking his wand away and wiping his hands on his knees. “Two one-way tickets to Times Square.”

 

At first, Credence thinks it’s a watch. And then he’s _sure_ it’s a watch, or something that looks very much like a watch, anyway, and a broken one, at that. “It’s a watch,” he says finally, astonished.

 

“Oh, we try to keep them subtle,” Percy explains, going back up the porch stairs. “Everyday objects, to be safe.”

 

“It’s broken!”

 

“Well, the worse for wear, the better, you know. Whatever keeps the non-magic world uninterested.” Percy hefts his suitcase down into the yard, grunting a little with the effort; when he sees the look on Credence’s face, he laughs. “It’ll get us there, Credence, don’t worry. We used them sometimes at MACUSA— it might not be a smooth trip, exactly, but it’ll do its job, and quickly.”

 

Credence clutches the owl cage tightly to his chest, still sort of uneasy. From behind the bars, Twig coos. “What do you think,” he whispers to her, and she blinks at him, and nibbles at his fingers.

 

“That’s it, then,” says Percy again.

 

But his voice is gentled, and distant. Credence looks up to find him staring back at the house: empty, now, and swept clean. Like they’d never been there at all. Like they’ve made ghosts of their own.

 

They won’t hear the rush of the ocean at night, in New York. There will be no more long treks into town, no quiet days of birdcall and beach-walks. They’ll trade their big porch for seven flights of fire escapes, their wide yard for clipped flowers in empty bottles— for taxi-whistles, and shoe-shines, and a boathouse skating rink.

 

“You think it’d get easier to leave a place,” says Percy.

 

“It’ll still be here,” Credence replies. “It’s just that we won’t be.”

 

He can already feel it, settling into his chest. Making itself at home there: not a ghost but a memory, the feeling of having something and then having lost it, of belonging somewhere and then belonging somewhere else. Of wanting the wrong things, of finding someone he’d been looking for. Old loves and new homes, and same loves, better loves. Where New York was, Norborough will be, and maybe— that’s all right with him.

 

He’ll have had Percy in both.

 

“Ready when you are,” says Percy, and smiles, against the sun.

 

And Credence takes his hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my incredible beta, [kimmy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmykimmy/pseuds/bimmykimmy). you exist and i am better for it.
> 
> i’m sorry to say that this will, for sure, be the last thing i write for this particular series. i feel good about leaving them here. 
> 
> i do have more gravebone coming though, in case you’d like to stick around! i’m working on two fics i'm really excited to share: Professional Cuddler Percival Graves AU, and "A Magizoologist’s Analysis of The Uncommon Obscurial". i hope to have both of those done by the end of next month. 
> 
> say hello on [tumblr](http://bygoneboy.tumblr.com) in the meantime!! and thank you, as always, for reading,
> 
> mak xx


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